1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless terminal or phone; and more particularly relates to a wireless terminal having a smart card.
2. Description of Related Art
Smart cards (SC) with an International Standardization Organization (ISO) 14443 contactless interface are deployed in the field and are being used in numerous applications ranging from public transport ticketing to access control and further to payment schemes.
Many applications require the loading of a value or other similar information on the smart card. This is normally done with SC readers installed on public locations like, in the case of a public transport smart card, subway stations. In those cases the smart card typically incorporates a galvanic ISO7816 interface in addition to a contactless one. This galvanic ISO7816 interface is used when the smart card is inserted into the reader/loader device.
Mobile phones utilize many kinds of smart cards, the most well-known being the subscriber identity module (SIM) card used in the GSM system (i.e. global system for mobile communications). The GSM SIM card has an ISO7816 interface that allows the SIM card to communicate with the mobile phone. The addition of an antenna and support of the ISO14443 interface make it possible to use the SIM card resident in the phone in the same applications where contactless smart cards are used. Furthermore, when the SIM card is in the ISO7816 reader in the phone, the phone can have additional functionality that adds value for the card user, like user interface to applications (ticketing, access control etc) on the SIM card.
When the SIM card is not being actively used in the phone, it is typically powered off. Also, when it is being used, the communication in the ISO7816 interface is always initiated by the ISO14443 reader. However, it may be necessary in many applications to activate the phone user interface when the card comes into the proximity of a ISO14443 reader. Such cases might be for instance the use of a high-value ticket, or executing a payment transaction that goes over a certain value.
In these cases the card might require, for instance, the user to enter a PIN code to authorize the transaction. But if the phone is idle, the smart card has no means to communicate its needs to the user since it is communicating through the ISO14443 interface and it cannot initiate communication over the ISO7816 interface.
One known approach to this problem respects the master/slave relation between the card reader, the mobile terminal, and the smart card, as the slave. In this approach, the smart card indicates in status bytes sent in a response to a command that it has additional information, not related to the executed command, for the mobile terminal to retrieve.